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Officer Hartmann didn't so much as frown at the sight that awaited him as he opened the door to the interrogation room. The detective- an infamous aspiring individual around the office, was already there, making small talk with the convict as she absentmindedly bit her nails.

Jenny Ann Butler, 21, was definitely not what he had been expecting when he was first told that he would be manning the interrogation of 'Frankenstein's Bride'.

He had stayed up all night reading her file the day before the police raid and as a result, hadn't had the chance to get a proper look at the girl before she was taken away for custody. Truth be told, he honestly didn't know what to expect after all that reading. As scary as it seemed, Jenny reminded him more of a poor misled soul than a... a... invalid or whatever all those files and evidence and write ups made her out to be.

Her actions following her sister's suicide matched up with any common adult's: depression and seclusion. He knew first hand that no one would want to stay put after that stage was over, not after all the self-loathing and angst. Being in the same vicinity with people who knew your pain was suffocating and had she simple just ran away, she probably wouldn't have ended up on the wrong side of the law.

But of course, if what he read was true, this was the girl who was suspected to have been diagnosed with Aspergers at an early age. Who could've plead insanity if that was true but instead had a higher calling when several witnesses reported seeing a young girl cut into her flesh to do god knows what and sewed the legs back onto an abused stray cat. Which just so happened to be still living and have legs so perfect that no one could've expected that someone sewed flesh and bone back on.

Then of course, she also went and stole thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment and helped cheat the healthcare system by providing free treatments on the street.

"Nice of you to finally join us, officer." The detective looked a bit annoyed at him, which he had no idea why he would be because he wasn't the one who was fraternizing with the convict. Even if she looked like she couldn't hurt a fly.

The less logical part of the officer joked that she would completely heal it and prevent it from having cancer too.

"I am looking forward to working with you, detective." He returned grimly and took a seat across from Jenny who was staring at him curiously.

He almost wanted to groan as he flipped through the file and took a small notebook out, noticing that the detective had done the same as well.

"Jenny Ann Butler," he started and already he could hear a pen scratching against paper, "I am officer Hartmann and as far as I know- you've already met the detective."

The small girl only nodded at that, staring from the detective to locking eyes with him then dropping her focus to her lap. Hartmann almost sighed at her reaction, she really was a misled little thing.

"I didn't do anything wrong..." her voice was so small that if they hadn't been in a confined space, he probably wouldn't even have noticed that she even opened her mouth, "I had good intentions, I swear!"

"Good intentions doesn't cut it in the real world, Freckles." Her head shot up from her lap as large brown eyes watched him take a few photographs out of a file and face them down, "would you like to see your criminal record and remind yourself just how alike you and all the other criminals in this facility are?"

She shook her head almost quite violently at that as she started to bite her nails again. The detective was still violently writing stuff down in the background.

"Do you remember where this is?" He flipped over the first picture and handed it to her, watching as she gingerly took it and examined the photo. She shook her head.

Hartmann was too busy trying to decipher Jenny's character that he hadn't even noticed the detective waltz over and pluck the picture out of her fingers.

"That's that Chinese pharmacy downtown," he said almost lazily and a look of recognition dawned on Jenny's face.

The officer didn't say anything as he gauged her reaction and watched as her face fell almost as quickly as it lit up, "that's the last place I borrowed from, isn't it?"

"Robbed." The detective didn't seem too conflicted to add in cheerily.

"I reimbursed them!" Came a shrill reply and the officer watched, writing down how her body language hinted certain things as the detective took over the interrogation. He'd probably have to watch the video footage to actually be able to make a full report on what they discovered at the end of this.

"And just how did you manage to do that, miss Butler?" The older man asked inquisitively, leaning against the table and grabbing the other photos Hartmann had faced down. "You haven't exactly been in contact with your family-"

"Don't contact them! Don't tell them! Leave my aunt and uncle out of this!" Jenny stood up so fast that the chair they had provided for her had toppled over and she looked as if she was glowering, fuming so much that she was sweating. She was taking deep breathes through clenched teeth and the officer realized that if she continued then there would soon be a great concern of her fainting on them.

"Then tell us who your buyer is. Who's your top buyer? If you don't tell us, I might have to-"

"NO! You can't involve them! They've got nothing to do with this," Her voice was loud and her fist had slammed against the table with such velocity that a few papers had flown out of its respective holder.

Officer Hartmann was never one for brutal police interrogations and frankly, he didn't even know why he was assigned this in the first place but he knew this had to stop before they managed to break her.

"Detective, a word please." A heavy silence had followed that remark before the older man finally sighed and followed the officer out of the room.

He remembered hearing the other officers gossip about their resident aspiring detective- he was overzealous and took things too far too quickly. He reminded the officer of those loonies in those old cartoons he used to watch; like he had been drugged into thinking he was the world's best detective and it was his duty to save the earth via solving puzzles before the evil overlord took control of all of Earth's resources.

They didn't say anything until they were both in front of the two way mirror of the interrogation room, within full view of the girl inside and knowing full well that she wouldn't be able to see them or overhear their conversation. The detective took a deep dramatic sigh before deciding that now was time to explode on the younger officer.

"I was in the midst of a questioning, you dolt! What is with you young people nowadays," he was all up in his face and it was apparent that the man was a chain smoker; if the yellowed teeth haven't given it away by now.

"Breaking her wouldn't have got us anywhere, detective." He cut in sharply, "the direction you were taking would have-"

"Got us answers more quickly than your little kiddy questioning." He growled into his face and Hartmann was lucky enough to take a quick breath of air before the putrid smell of cigarettes wafted through his nose.

"What we're trying to figure is how she was able to heal all those people and animals- not who or how she was able to provide for herself until now." The stare down was every bit as intense as those words left his mouth. He glared at the detective and realized with a burst that this investigation wasn't going to go anywhere at this rate.

He almost wanted to request for another detective on the case, almost wanted to storm away and leave it unsolved and lock Jenny Ann Butler in the interrogation room forever so he wouldn't have to deal with her and whatever proposed powers she had. He was just about to retort when a series of footsteps rounded the corner and the two turned to stare at a small herd of people hustling towards them.

Hartmann almost wanted to laugh. Now these people took their job a little too far. What with their expensive tailored suits and sunglasses, he was expecting aliens to pop out from the ceilings any moment now. These people just screamed suspicious at first glance.

He was glad the detective was also sharing his doubts. Even if he seemed to be more vocal about it.

The older man looked about to call them out on their attire when one of the black suited men came up to them. The officer stiffened almost immediately, watching as the man took out a golden badge. He must be the ringleader, he thought to himself as he saluted, he all but radiated authority and power. Hartmann would have to be crazy if he said he would be willing to mess with this guy.

There was a nagging voice in the back of the officer's mind that told him that this wasn't a coincidence though. During the briefing, he had been told that Jenny managed to garner the attention of numerous criminal minds and was constantly on the run. There was no way she could have managed that feat unless her powers really were, as they suspected, actual super powers.

Such wasn't strange nowadays, Hartmann told himself, he knew that with each passing day more and more supers sprang up like fungi. It made him wonder just how innocent Jenny really was. After all, she had been doing this for months.

"... demand the release of Jenny Ann Butler to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's department of Special Homeland Security." The officer would also prefer to throw himself into a ring of fire than admit to his superior that he hadn't caught the first part of what the agent said.

"Wait, you're the FBI?" He heard the detective question beside him, "in case you missed it, we're in the middle of an-"

"an agreement proposed by the higher ups to start the Ragdoll program." The officer cut in quickly, remembering off the top of his head the name of the suggested way to investigate Jenny's so called powers. "Miss Butler has agreed to cooperate with us so far; we plan to make her the head."

There was a flash in his minds eye and he remembered, with so much detail, flipping through her file and stumbling across one picture of when she was still with a family. She looked to be about four, holding her older sister's hand and clutching a doll- a rag doll in her other hand. They bore the same resemblance and it really was him who suggested that they named the program as such.

It was just a suggestion at first, but with this sudden encounter, he would have to convince his superior to actually go ahead with it. It'll be like a field examination, he kept telling himself as he met the ringleader's gaze.

Really, it was the first thing in his mind when he realized that these people were anything but FBI.

He almost had a heart attack as he watched the men behind the ringleader stir, Hartmann could only hope that the detective wouldn't mess this up until the agent finally dropped his hard gaze with a small sigh.

"Another day then." It was almost ominous sounding, like he was scheming and whatever just happened wasn't over it.

It wasn't until they rejoined Jenny in the interrogation room that he realized just what he said and let out the loudest groan ever.

It was going to be another endless night, Rocko entertaining half a dozen of his other drug addicted friends until the sun came up, and Jenny would just have to put up and shut up. If she wanted the work, she had to stay with a Fink gang member. With the way the night’s work had gone, however, Jenny had had enough. For once, she demanded peace and quiet.

Everyone had stared at her. It was the last thing she had said before Rocko had packed her bags for her and thrown her out. He slammed the door in her face before she could ask where she was supposed to go. She called the number to every gangster she trusted, but no one answered. Eventually she had found the coaster with the scribbled address at the bottom of her bag. Icy fingers curled around her gut as she stared at it, wishing someone else would call her back first.

That had been thirty minutes ago. She had stared at her phone until the night ride bus arrived and long after she had boarded, but no one called her. The high density, working class apartment blocks changed to the warm streets of middle class suburbia without her noticing. She hadn’t checked where in the city she was really going before getting on the bus. In the end, Jenny had twice asked the bus driver if he was sure he was taking her in the right direction and both times he had nodded. For weeks the address had been forgotten at the bottom of her bag, ignored together with the offer of lodging that had come with it. Hannibal never said where he lived, but the other gangsters all spoke of slum apartments. She had just assumed. A senior Fink? A murderer like him? He was only a sober, more dangerous Rocko, of course he would have the same disgusting apartment.

Standing at the doorstep of the small family home, Jenny was sure she had the wrong address. There was nothing that said drugs, violence and prostitution in the garden or the brickwork. It looked normal, like the house of an office worker who had a nine to five job. A perfect nuclear family would be living inside with perfect jobs that gave them just enough to make do. It was the house of the American dream. The Finks' Sergeant of Arms wouldn't be there.

Jenny rang the doorbell. It was a terrible mistake that she knew she would regret, but she was shivering, her feet ached and there was nowhere else to go. At the worst, she would call some poor family out of bed who would hurl abuse at her for waking them up in the middle of the night and send her away, at the best, they could give her directions for where she could go. Anything was better than actually having to stay with Hannibal anyway. This way she had an excuse for why she hadn't stayed with a gangster for the night.

After a minute, a light turned on and one half the house’s perfect couple appeared at the door, rugged up in bathrobe that was slipping off the woman’s shoulder, exposing part of her silk nighty and a slender, tanned shoulder underneath. Her face was cold and hard as she looked through the fly screen at Jenny, tucking a few gold locks behind her ear.

The woman waited a moment, searching the darkness for something. “Hello?”

It was obvious, Jenny was going to get a telling off for waking the woman up over nothing, but it was best to be truthful. Swallowing down her anxiety, she forced a smile. “I was told I could stay here.”

The woman folded her arms and glared at her. Jenny could believe she had suddenly shrunk to being three inches tall. “Really? What smartass told you that?”

“Hannibal,” she squeaked.

The scowl went deeper into her features but just as quickly disappeared altogether as she pushed aside the screen door. “Come in then.”

Jenny watched her retreat back into the house stunned. Hannibal actually lived here? That couldn't be right. Hannibal was a thug – admittedly with an occasional kind streak – but he was a killer. He was the explosive lone wolf. If he wasn't, then that would mean that –

“You’re letting the cold in, hun.”

Jenny didn’t dawdle with a second invitation. She came into the warmth of the house and for the first time didn’t shudder when she closed herself into the house of a gangster. There wasn’t a mouldy, dusty smell to the room, the air didn’t feel stale – the room knew what natural sunlight felt like. It was a home, a real home. Jenny had almost forgotten what that warmth felt like after years away living with the scum of the city.

As instructed, she left her bags next to the couch. The woman that Jenny was still reluctant to call Hannibal’s wife – no one had ever said he was married – was already at the far end of the lounge in the open plan kitchen.

“Can I offer you something? A drink, something to eat?” As an afterthought, she added, “It’s Carla, by the way.”

Jenny had to catch herself to stop saying her real name. It was impolite, but she needed to stay safe; “Ragdoll.” She hoped the smile made up for it. “And no. No thanks. I’m imposing enough as it is without putting you further out of your way.”

There was no answer from Carla – cupboards were still being opened, and odds and ends taken out. She had heard Jenny, she had murmured an affirmation when Jenny had repeated herself but carried on as though Jenny wasn’t there. Within seconds, Jenny was starting to feel more out of place than she had thought Hannibal would have. She probably wouldn’t have taken the initiative to sit down if her legs weren't already primed for sleep. As comfortable as the couch looked, she took a seat on one of the stools next to the kitchen island.

Asking about Hannibal seemed like the only sensible thing to do to fill the void. “Is…?”

“John’s out on business. He said he’d be back late.”

Jenny sat back in silence, her brow knotted into a frown. John? She didn't know a… They were talking about the same person. She couldn’t believe she had never heard Hannibal’s real name before. It made him sound so… so ordinary. No images of Hannibal Lecter flashed through her mind, or Hannibal Smith who the gangsters insisted he was named after. With a name like that, she could almost forget what she had seen earlier that night. Jenny should have listened to Rocko; she should have checked the people they were trafficking and worried about the gangsters later. There was enough suffering to see amongst the women who were already sick and desperate and realising that their hopes of a new, better life would only end in prostitution. She should have ignored the rest of the gang business, then she wouldn’t have seen the four dockworkers. It had looked like it was just the usual, a bit of a beat up and it would be over. The first time she had seen a line of people on their knees, she had thought they were going to be executed – instead they just ended up in the closest ICU. Hannibal had been so fast that none of the dockworkers had thought to run before they were dead, lying in a pool of their own blood.

“A penny?” Carla's voice jolted her back to the present. She was back in the family home, not in the dank coldness of the docks. The memory receded and she could swallow down the bile at the back of her throat.

“Huh?”

A warm, knowing smile appeared on Carla’s face as she turned away, back to her work. “A penny for your thoughts?”

“I just thought he’d be home by now.”

“I wouldn’t wait up for him, hun.” With what felt like a flourish after being so long away from decent society, Carla brought her a cup of cocoa. It looked amazing, although Jenny wasn’t sure. Anything could have looked amazing in that home. “You look tired. How about I show you a room and you can get some sleep?”

Jenny protested, “The couch will be –”

“I’ll show you the room and you can make up your mind.”

With the cocoa in hand, Jenny followed Carla down the dark hallway, taking in every sound, smell and sight in the house. Everything seemed so perfect, even if the family portraits were conspicuously absent and the only photos looked like they were ten years old and always with a friend. Jenny was sure Hannibal had to have looked like a killer at one point so that he could look so normal now, but he didn’t. The chip on his shoulder was there, but as subtle as always. He was ever the parental figure, even if it was a role he still had to grow in to back then. In each and every photo, the camera had managed to capture that fleeting, out of place warm, approving smile. Nothing said he was a gangster at all.

The guest bedroom was twice the size of the room Jenny had been sharing at Rocko’s. It had all the trimmings Jenny could have asked for except for an en suite bathroom. It was as perfect as everything else in the house. The bed hadn’t been done up but Jenny refused to let Carla do any more work on her behalf. She didn’t mind the bemused expression on Carla’s face as she left her the bed linen, the warm goodnight was what she had been missing for years. If she had known this was what Hannibal's offer had been all those weeks ago, she wouldn't have stayed another second in the horrible squatter's apartment.

--

A penetrating light made Jenny stir awake as it swerved over the room. She would have turned over and gone back to sleep if she hadn't heard the crunching gravel that came with it. The crunching stopped, the lights went out and the picking of a cooling engine took over. Hannibal had finally come home.

She propped herself up on her elbows and listened. Hannibal didn't waste time, his heavy boots hit the gravel and he slammed the car door shut within seconds of the lights going out. The way the gravel ground under his feet was louder than the car, Jenny winced when she heard too many pebbles crash away with what could only be a stumble. That wasn't the Hannibal she knew. There was none of the confidence, resolution and pride that everyone could hear in the way his feet hit the floor.

A bang erupted into the house as the front door ricocheted off the wall. Jenny stopped breathing. An argument had burst in with the bang, but the only person involved was Hannibal. Jenny couldn't make out a word, he was mumbling and talking too fast – the words blurred together. But she caught every swear half shouted into the empty living room.

Slowly the guest bedroom started to feel smaller, and all the small sounds of a sleeping house and sleeping suburb faded away. And the world sped up. Jenny felt hyper-aware of everything. The erratic beating of her heart almost matched Hannibal's footsteps. Her throat closed up as she struggled for breath. A panic attack was coming.

Something shattered.

"******** off!"

Another door flew open, but its bang wasn't as loud. The slap of Carla's feet on the tiles was light and filled with all the purpose that Hannibal's lacked.

"John. Babe. It's alright. It's alright. …" Carla soften to barely a whisper, creating a soft susurrus under the slower stampede of Hannibal's boots. His crazed mumbling started to abate. A dampener had been put on the madness.

With the panic attack fading, curiosity started to nibble at her. The sound from the living room was still like a raging bull before it faced down a matador, but Carla had calmed it down. The snorting and panting was better than the mumbling and shouting. Jenny snuck out from beneath the sheets and slipt along the wall of the room like it made the slightest bit of difference and pulled back the door just enough to peer out.

Through the tunnel vision the hallway offered, Jenny could only see part of Carla as she sat against the arm of the couch. The single light had gone sterile compared to earlier that night. Carla was watching Hannibal – he could hardly keep still. In seconds Jenny knew what it was. Hannibal was high or crashing. She had never seen him be either before.

Jenny could hear Carla now; "You have to tell me."

"Not a chance. Not a ******** chance!"

"This is home. You don't want to yell. You're tweaking and you know you're tweaking, so you're going to listen to me."

"Shutup shutup shutup!"

Carla was unfazed. "It's me or a head full of meth."

"I didn't– You don't know!"

"Take a few benzos."

The pacing stopped. The only sound was Hannibal's heavy breathing. After a moment, Carla looked away from Hannibal to the kitchen. Like she had shown him the way, Hannibal charged after her gaze. Jenny shrunk back into the darkness for the second he was in view and stayed there wincing to the banging and clattering as he tore through the kitchen cupboards. When it stopped, water started running.

Jenny felt her heart jump to her throat when another door opened further up the hallway. She watched as a boy crept out of the room. He couldn't be more than eight. He was tip-toeing like a cartoon character, but with his arms wrapped around his chest, his head like a sonar scanning one end of the gap into the living room to the other.

The boy didn't get far before Carla pushed away from the couch and went to him. The sternness she had thrown at Hannibal was curbed at the edges as she turned him back for his room.

"Go back to sleep, Ty. You shouldn't be up so late."

"Is Daddy okay?"

Carla spoke sweetly, Jenny heard the loving tone in her voice more than the words; "Daddy doesn't know what he is. Just go to bed and we'll talk about it in the morning."

By the time Carla was shutting the boy's door, Hannibal had appeared at the mouth of the hallway. His shadow seemed to absorb all the light that filtered from the living room.

"You're encouraging him."

"What are you talking about?"

"That daddy bullshit."

"For ******** sake, John. He wasn't even old enough to call Vinnie anything when they had him killed." The bite had entered Carla as she took the fight away from the door and the boy, and back into the living room. They both disappeared around the corner, and Jenny was left with their voices. "So are you going to tell me what this is about?"

"They're going to hang me for it. They'll have me in the chair by the end of the year. Who'll you have him call dad then?"

"You're the biggest bore when you're tweaking."

"I know!" It wasn't impossible to imagine the lightbulb going off over Hannibal's head. "That ******** c**t Detective Wyatts could move in. He's around here more often than I am."

"John." Hannibal had none of it.

"All you have to do is open up your legs to the c**t and he'll give us a pass for another month. Don't think I don't know every time his car is parked out the front. I can smell him every time I come through the door!"

"John."

"How is he then? Does he ******** you the second you let him in? And that ******** spaz he has for a partner now, does he watch, the sick c**t, or do you let them both have a go at you at the same ******** time?!"

"Of course. Wyatts along with half of Jersey have been through here."

Hannibal stopped trying to drown Carla out. The silence was toxic with anticipation.

"What?"

"If you only come home every other night, a girl has to –"

A gut wrenching thud echoed through the house. Jenny pulled herself up against the frame of the door, still unable to see either Carla or Hannibal, but she didn't dare go further. In her mind's eye, she could see Carla cowering against the wall, the bleeding lip, the growing bruise on the side of her face. Jenny wanted to help her, but her concern for Carla was nothing compared to her fear of Hannibal. What could she have done? She could help people get better, she wasn't a physical match for Hannibal.

Jenny kept expecting the next blow and the sobs. The gangsters were all the same; they all left their girlfriends and wives in a twisted mess. Once the carnage was over, she could heal them, but they always went back to the man that battered them.

Jenny barely heard Hannibal's apology; "Sorry."

There was a lag before Carla replied. "Stick with it. The benzos haven't kicked in yet."

To her growing credit, as far as Jenny was concerned, Carla left Hannibal alone in the living room. With the light behind her, Jenny couldn't see what damage Hannibal had done to Carla's face but it was enough confirmation that she was right to see one of the straps of Carla's nightie had slipt off her shoulder. The thug of a man had attacked her.

There was no strength in solidarity from Carla when she caught sight of Jenny. Her face was as hard as it had been when Jenny had first showed up at the door. With one gesture, she was told everything: 'Get back inside. This is none of your business.'

"When you're done," she said over her shoulder, "come to bed." Hannibal had already been forgiven.

The warning had been enough. There was no telling what Hannibal would do if he saw her, and if Carla had seen her then should Hannibal appear around the corner, he would too. Jenny moved away from the door until her legs bumped the frame of the bed. In a second, she had made up her mind: once Hannibal had gone to Carla, she would run. She would pretend she had never been there. If any of the gangsters asked where she had spent the night, she would lie.

She kneeled on the bed and listened for the moment Hannibal would leave the living room. There was no denying it, she was abandoning Carla, but she could come back during the day, when Hannibal would be with the gang and they could spend the time together. Maybe Jenny could even convince Carla to take the little kid and run, while the pain of what Hannibal had done was still raw. Jenny was sure she had read somewhere that it took five times leaving an abusive partner before they left for good. She could contribute to that. But first, she needed to escape.

The house had hit a reset when Carla has gone back to the bedroom. The natural peace of the perfect household muffled the turmoil of seconds ago. While Jenny waited, the adrenaline rush of fear wore off. The house was once more a home, the warmth of the bed beneath her lulling her back into the memory of its comfort. The house was stabilising. It was pretending that a murdering gangster wasn't still somewhere in the living room.

No further sounds came from the living room. And eventually – Jenny couldn't say how long after – her fear receded, and against her better judgement, she fell asleep still waiting for her chance to run.

---

One moment Jenny was dreaming of being back with her aunt and uncle, the next she was startled awake as Hannibal tore the blanket off her. She shrunk back against the bedhead, her heart thundering. Her eyes flew around the room as she tried to figure out what was going on before it was too late to stop whatever was to happen. Memories from last night and Rocko's haunted her. Sudden awakenings had been followed by drunk and drugged slobbering men. This time she had no protection.

However, Hannibal was nowhere near the bed. He was peering through the gap in the now closed blinds, his critical frown setting his profile to its normal state. Still, Jenny was painfully aware that she was only wearing a shirt and panties, and Hannibal was no less destructive than last night and with a gun hidden under his shirt.

Jenny made a grab for the blanket at the end of the bed. She froze midway as Hannibal spoke;

"I thought you went back to Rocko's." He had turned to look at her. The small halo of light around the blinds lit half his face, making him look more severe, bringing out the haunting after effects of the drugs in his eyes. Jenny's heart was still racing. With his arms folded across his chest, his muscles were straining his shirt, and Jenny's mind couldn't accept that it was unintentional. He was a foot taller than her and easily twice as heavy. Why hadn't she thought of that last night? Why had she fallen for the act that the house was a safe place? Why hadn't she run when she had the chance?

"I changed my mind." Her throat was dry and the fear robbed her of conviction. The blanket was just out of reach and Hannibal's gaze paralysed her. There had to be a smart way of getting out of there and it wasn't going to happen if she couldn't move nor speak.

Hannibal was refusing to fill the silence. Jenny knew she had to say something more, anything would do as long as she kept talking and he did nothing. Stumbling over her words she said, "They had a party, I wanted to sleep."

Still Hannibal said nothing. As Jenny was about to come up with another answer, he moved. Jenny jumped back to the bedhead, almost falling off the bed to get away, but Hannibal went for the door. He picked up the clothes she had left on the chair and tossed it to her on his way out, not looking back at her.

"Get ready. We have to talk." He didn't close the door when he left.

Jenny waited until Hannibal was back in the living room before grabbing her clothes. She was dressed faster than she could ever remember getting dressed before. Without Hannibal looking down at her, she was starting to calm down and convince herself to think about what her options were. Whatever he was upset with, Jenny knew she had the best chance of talking her way out of it if she stayed grounded and didn't make a song and dance about it. That was how Hannibal operated… when he was sober… She prayed the worst of the drugs had worn off.

The living room smelt of food; dirty dishes from breakfast were stacked in the sink – the remnants of Carla and the boy. The house was as silent as Rocko's apartment had been loud. Jenny refused to let herself be intimidated. The house wasn't there to be feared, the only thing to fear was Hannibal who was nursing a beer and taking swigs of it like it was water. There was no chance she would have a rational conversation.

Clearing her throat didn't earn her his attention. Hannibal was busy texting on his old flip phone, typing faster than most of the people her age. She looked between her bags and the door, trying to work out if she could make it in time to get away before he noticed her. Her odds were slim to none. She had to face him.

"Thank you for letting me stay."

Hannibal replied without breaking from his phone, "Carla said there may have been a problem."

She had no idea what he was talking about, but decided to go along with it. "No. It's alright."

"You left Rocko's." The phone went away as he levelled her a stare Jenny had learnt too well over the last couple of months. She had watched gangsters open up from that look alone, those who didn't were either in the Hudson or nursing bruises. If she could trust him, she would have told him the whole truth, but Hannibal would never take her side over Rocko's.

"I wanted a good night's rest."

He took a swig of the beer, never taking his eyes off her. Being at the end of that stare, she started to understand why so many people were willing to give in to the unspoken request for honesty – or supplying the answer Hannibal wanted. "Rocko's a c**t –" She tried to interrupt him and say otherwise – Rocko was no worse than most of the thugs she had had to deal with – however, Hannibal spoke over the top of her. "He's the only idiot we have who has the room. It's always hectic with him. ******** junkie." Another swig. "You get enough of it after a while. I would have quit after the first couple of weeks."

Compared to last night, he sounded normal, however, the paranoia was creeping its way back into the edges of his voice. Jenny knew she had to get him off topic. "It's alright."

"Alright? ********? You could be working in a hospital helping people, instead you're ******** around with ******** junkies."

That was what it was about? She couldn't believe she would be defending her life choices to a wasted gangster of all people. That conversation had become tedious after the first few months she had started working as a medic-for-hire, however, the deeper into the mobs and mafias in New York she was, the less she found the need to explain herself. Of course it would have been Hannibal – the Finks' resident stand-in father – who would take it on himself to give her some guiding advice. Trying to tell him off when he was on two different depressants and a stimulant – that she knew of – was going to be an uphill battle.

As politely as possible, she said, "Can we–"

"For a kid your age, you may think the end money's s**t hot. What we're paying you is more than most of the kids will ever see, but the money just s**t." As Hannibal went to discard the empty bottle, she could see it was all going straight to his head. Jenny wanted to stop him from taking another bottle from the fridge but he gave her no opportunity. The further along he went, the more Jenny felt like she could have walked out and Hannibal never would have noticed. He hadn't noticed or at the very least hadn't reacted to her going over to her bags. If things started to get hairy again, she could grab her things and run, but for now, she let Hannibal finish. If she could ride out Hannibal's rant and leave with his say so, there would be nothing to fear the next time she faced the gang.

"Ten years from now, your cut won't go higher unless if you learn to do something new, and you'll have ******** up and been caught at least once. If you end up with someone attached to your wallet, your money's not going to help them when you're inside, and they'll be worth more to you than having a few bucks in your back pocket."

When Hannibal started up again, another few gulps of stout to grease his throat, he had taken on a contemplative tone. "Whatever you've done to land the suits and pigs on your back, there's nothing you can't outrun right now and disappear, as long as you give up all this illegal bullshit. No crim outruns the law, Dolly. I haven't seen it and I don't believe it. But someone gone straight stands a chance."

Jenny waited for something more, but there was nothing. The engine had run out of steam. He had crumpled – despite the strength in his voice and the strength she knew was in his body, Hannibal looked like some of the cancer patients she had worked on for the government. It could have been fatigue and the drugs – Jenny would have found it easier to explain if it had been. She had put all the criminals into one pile of monsters who happened to have the money to keep her employed. Blankly labelling Hannibal a monster had been hard from the first time she had spoken to him, and with a home like this, she was finding it harder to lump him together with the others.

On impulse, Jenny wanted to thank him for the advice and close off the conversation, hopefully for good. A secondary treacherous thought pushed her to reason with him instead. She wanted him not to worry.

"It's not so simple."

Hannibal slammed the bottle down on the granite bench top. Jenny jumped, her heart thundering a million miles a second at the explosion of sound and his snarl. "Yeah it is! I said the same thing at your age: 'it's more ******** complicated than trying to do something else.' That wasn't true then, I was just too ******** comfortable. But that is true now." The beer poured down his hand as he gesticulated with the bottle. He wasn't a cancer patient anymore.

"The cops are all over us like ******** hives, I have more than five years inside already, I didn't know enough to finish the seventh grade when I did it the second time and I sure as ******** don't know any more now. I don't have a choice. I have nowhere to go, nothing to do if I turn my back on this. But look at you."

The chance to escape out the front door vanished as Hannibal came out from behind the kitchen island. Jenny backed away until she felt the cold wall behind her, but Hannibal kept coming. "You can help people. You get a licence and a degree on your wall, and you can be a ******** doctor or nurse at any place you want. Anyone who knows what they're doing out there would change with you in a ******** second for the chances you've got – in a ******** second. So what the ******** makes you want to throw your ******** life away to help people like us?"

Nausea washed over Jenny as she breathed in the stench of the alcohol. She grasped for something to defend herself with, but her hands remained empty. All she had was reason and she grasped at it as frantically as she did for a weapon. "None of you have been on the government's most wanted list for the country, perhaps the world. I can't go straight. They'll always try to find me."

"There are three rats in our gang that we know of, more in every gang in this city. You work with all of them." He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, as though she was stupid to not know. And he was desperate for her to understand. "If the government wanted to find you and arrest you, they'd have done it by now. If they wanted you dead, they'd have used one of their informants or the last of their undercovers to do it. Every crim knows that it's only time that's between them and the big house, and if you work with us, you're no different to us."

Hannibal could have kept going, instead he cut himself off as they heard keys jangling in the lock. Jenny held back the sigh of relief for having his attention turned off her. Without the imminent threat of violence hanging over her, she could admit she knew Hannibal's heart was in the right place, she only wished there was a way she could have told him off without sounding rude. It wasn't as though she was the clueless little girl that Hannibal seemed to think she was. She knew the risks and her options.

The smile dropped from Carla's face as she took in the room. There was a question on her lips however Hannibal was moving before she had the chance to ask it. He left the bottle on the counter and grabbed his keys on his way out. He almost would have escaped if Carla hadn't stood in his way.

Jenny felt her heart skip a beat as she held her breath. Hannibal was stiff. The fear she had felt for herself moments before she suddenly felt for Carla. The threat of violence consumed Hannibal like it hadn't at any time during his drunken rant. There was nothing he could do that Jenny couldn't heal, but she didn't want Carla to suffer because of her. She couldn't undo the mental anguish if Hannibal battered her again.

But Hannibal did nothing. Carla's hand found his and his gaze dropped. The moment passed. She looked between him and Jenny, making her own conclusion. Without a word, Carla forced Hannibal to look at her again through will alone and then pressed her lips to his. It was nothing more than a kiss, but Jenny couldn't shake the feeling that she was watching a private moment. There was a tenderness to Hannibal she had never seen before in him or any gangster as he forfeited himself to Carla. It was then she realised what it was: they were saying goodbye.

And it was over. Carla kissed him again softly and quickly on the lips like a signature, and then Hannibal slipt past her and was gone. Her gut twisted as Carla ignored her, ignoring everything and heading straight for the dirty dishes as casually as though the moment before had never happened. They had done this before. It was normal – routine even. Jenny didn't want to think about how often it happened – if it was weekly, daily, a goodbye for every time they saw each other. The desperation in his pleading suddenly made so much more sense.

Carla left the keys – her own and the ones Jenny had been sure Hannibal had left with – next to the sink as she begun to wash up with obsessive precision. She attacked each plate and bit of cutlery like it would be expected in surgery. Jenny watched, unable to find the words to explain the situation.

"John's a good man." It was a statement. Carla's tone was final. Jenny wasn't sure it was even directed at her. After what she had seen and what she knew, a good man was not a term she would ever use to describe him. Hannibal was a nicer gangster than most of the others, but because he was willing to put someone out of their misery instead of torturing them did not make him a good man.

It occurred to Jenny that Carla did not know exactly what her husband did. She wanted to tell her as a matter of honesty, but as quickly as the thought entered her mind, she ignored it. The truth was none of her business. "I should go. Thank you for your hospitality."

"John is a good man, Ragdoll." The tone was a slap in the face. It demanded confirmation.

Jenny was ready to leave without saying a word. It would be rude, but she didn't want to lie and feed Carla's delusion. If it made her sleep better at night, it was her own business. Jenny had not forced her into marrying a criminal or staying with one. Jenny had heard him beat her last night… although she had to admit, there was no mark on her and Hannibal's swaying gait started to look more like a limp in hindsight. But Carla had been nice to her when she had come in the middle of the night.

The words felt false on her tongue but she eventually forced them out; "I know."

"You don't. You still think you're better than us because you're smart and pretty and you came from somewhere better than we did. You're you, and John and his friends are dirt. Scum. It's written all over your face, you couldn't even hide it while you stayed here." Jenny felt the colour rise in her cheeks. If Carla had yelled at her or talked down to her, she could have brushed it off the same way she had brushed off Hannibal, but she was calm and matter-of-fact. There would have been no difference to her tone if she had said that the sky was blue or that grass was green.

"The only things that matter are actions, hun. John let you stay here instead of leaving you to the mob. He went to prison for my husband, and he took me and Tyson in when he got out. He didn't do those things to make himself feel better. He can get all the drugs he wants for free when he's into feeling better. You'll never thank him for a second for what he's done for you and he'll hate you if you did. He's a good man."

The unarguable statement returned. Once more, Jenny had no idea whether she was supposed to acknowledge it or not. Her answer would be no different to the first time: she still didn't believe it.

However, the silence had no expectation. Carla was done with her.

Picking up her bags, Jenny said, "I won't bother you again."

Carla said nothing, she finished cleaning the dishes, and started to dry them and put them away. Last night, Carla had been John's wife – partner, the man her son called 'daddy', or whatever it was that they called each other. She had been hostess and housewife. Today, she was Hannibal's wife. She was a 'Mom', a gangster's girl who would murder someone who looked at her man funny or dared tell her off for throwing her lot in with those that she had.

The smell of the detergent had mixed with the smell of the long forgotten pancakes as Jenny left the house. It had been so warm when she had arrived. Every inch of the house had felt like a normal home, and Jenny knew if a stranger walked in off the street it would feel like that for them now. But the door had been slammed in her face forever. The only fault in Hannibal's home had been that it had asked her to listen to something she did not want to hear. Rocko's apartment had the threat of real danger, where the least of her worries were that she would never be able to sleep. Jenny knew she would be returning to that apartment tonight. This time, she would not complain.

Well, it wasn’t the worst shape Jenny had ever been in, but it ranked fairly close to the top.

Crouched behind a large, metal garbage bin, knees pulled up to her chest, she gnawed ferociously on her thumbnail, already no more than a nub. Her dress was rumpled and grimy, her skin caked with grit from where they had covered her in a thin layer of dirt to obscure her body from the casual observer, assuming she was dead or close enough that it didn’t matter. Her hair…she didn’t want to think about her hair. And where the hell had her left shoe gone? Had it been missing since she woke up?

Behind the dumpster, thumbnail practically obliterated, looking a wreck, Jenny tried to find the silver linings.

There weren’t many. Not that she could see.

The first diner she managed to stagger to after regaining consciousness had been nice enough to let her in and give her water to replenish some of the fluids lost along with several pints of blood. They offered to call the cops for her, assuming she had been mugged. The cops were busy, though, as evidenced by the TV mounted above the bar, showing live coverage of a formerly deceased mafia lord making his debut by very publically robbing a bank.

With eyes on the mobster, nobody had noticed the others. She had spotted a clip of Antonio Rodriguez crossing the street behind the reporter for Channel 6 News. She was positive it was him. She remembered his face from the coverage of his November trial for triple homicide. Before a conviction could come down, somebody on the inside had gutted him in the prison shower.

Two dead criminals miraculously come to life five hours after somebody bled Jenny dry and left her for dead in a ditch? There was no such thing as coincidence. Before she could have a panic attack or throw up or get a nosebleed and lose what little fluids she had finally gotten back, she ducked out of the café and went to hide behind the dumpster out back. It seemed like the logical conclusion.

When her heart rate slowed back down and her nausea and dizziness subsided, she organized her thoughts. An unknown amount of deceased criminals were walking around. Jenny knew the names of the men responsible, but she didn’t have the means to do anything about it herself. She was still down a few pints on the inside, but even on her best days she didn’t have the resources to fix this kind of problem.

Who did that leave?

The police would arrest her if she went to them. Even if she gave them the information, their hands would be tied with diplomacy. They couldn’t take her word on faith. It would end in a manhunt for her head and that helped nobody. Least of all Jenny.

She hated to admit it, but one of the supers was probably her best bet. They would love to take her down, but she might be able to convince one of them, the right one, that she wasn’t the big problem. If she had time, she would be able to set up a meeting that guaranteed her safety, but time was not on anybody’s side. She wanted a shower. She wanted clean clothes. More than any of that, she wanted to make sure the drug kingpins and murderers risen from the grave didn’t do anybody harm, especially because it would inevitably lead back to her. She would not take the blame this time. Not for this one.

Scraping her way up the side of the brick wall, holding a stiff upper lip, Jenny resolved herself to clean up the mess. She swayed back inside the café, slumping to the bathroom where she washed her hands and face in an effort to feel more human, avoiding looking directly at her reflection. That would bear nothing good. She drank some water from the faucet, replenishing some more fluids to help her body’s regeneration along.

Back out in the café, she approached the bar and the waitress serving it. The girl didn’t have a much better poker-face than Jenny had, expressing uncertainty at her approach.

“Do you guys have a phone book? And a phone I can borrow?”

Phone books were laughably low tech, but Jenny didn’t exactly have a smartphone handy. The young woman motioned her to the end of the counter, taking sympathy on her, bringing over a yellowed telephone with a kinked and knotted spiral cord. She left and returned a moment later with a hefty copy of the Yellow Pages.

Plenty of ad space was dedicated to superhero hotlines, cheesy mottos and promises stamped across the section. She vetoed most of them at first glance. The overachieving do-gooders would haul her in so much as look at her.

After skimming down the list of eye-sore graphics and bubble letters proclaiming fast action and dutiful protection, she spotted something crammed in the corner of the page about a quarter of the size of the other ads. It was a simple sentence for Mirage. She snorted to herself, wondering if the casino in Vegas ever tried suing over the name. Either way, she knew a little about him. A washed-up, alcohol dependent old has-been who had a good prime, but could use a little positive publicity. It was a gamble. He might take the easy job and nab her to bring in, but if she could sell him on rounding up the resurrected criminals, he could really save everybody’s bacon, her own included.

She was just going to have to take the chance. It wasn’t like she had any better options. Sucking up her courage, she dialed the hotline number and turned her shoulder against the room to keep eavesdroppers from overhearing.

After a message drawled stating to outline her state of emergency and location, she said softly into the phone, “This is Ragdoll. I’ve got a proposition for you. Meet me at Sheila-Leigh’s Diner in Brooklyn. Time is of the essence.”

She wondered if she sounded too dramatic or if she just sounded like an idiot. This was a little outside of her area of expertise, dealing with supers and making deals. He would probably expect a double-cross. While she was regenerating blood flow, she doubted she even had the mental capacity to come up with a double-cross. To be honest, she might have trouble with that to begin with. The convoluted politics of heroes and villains were exhausting even on her good days.

Jenny found a little bit of nail growth on her pinky finger, immediately setting her teeth to it while she waited, hunkered down in a corner booth. Her other hand absently plucked at knotted clumps of ginger hair. What she wouldn’t give for a hairbrush.

A half an hour passed, the waitress on duty swinging by every once in a while to refill her water glass. Her blood production rapidly improved, especially with the ingestion of fluids. Her eyes were frequently drawn to the television fixed above the bar as the news continued reporting on crime sprees throughout the city. Another thought-to-be-dead criminal had come out of the woodworks. The cavalry had just been called in; superheros. They were reported to be scrambling to identify and neutralize all resurrected criminals and find out who exactly was responsible.

Jenny had her contacts she had met with, but she didn’t know who they were working for. It did beg the question, exactly who had ordered her blood drained and stolen? She scrunched her face, trying to calculate how many dead bad guys could be resurrected with it. If they took eight or nine pints of blood, and with how much it took to revive a corpse…

Before she could come up with an estimation, movement caught the corner of her eye. When she looked, it was gone, but before she could turn back around hands clamped down on her shoulders, spinning her. One arm went up behind her back as her head cracked loudly against the plastic table and stars burst in front of her vision.

As if this day hadn’t been bad enough already.

Thankfully, whacks on the head cleared up fairly quickly.

“Ow! What do you think you’re doing?”

“Ugh. You smell like you crawled out of a grave,” a deep voice said at her back.

A fair estimation. She sort of had.

“Stop it! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

She was jerked bodily out of the booth. Given that Mirage, especially the development of a beer gut, was twice her size, this wasn’t too big of an accomplishment. Twisting, she tried to get a look at him, but he rattled her warningly.

“As it happens, I’m arresting Ragdoll. About time I caught a ********’ break,” he growled, sour breath seeping around to sting her nostrils.

“You want a break? That’s what I want to give you!” she shrilled desperately, on the verge of panic. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! How could she possibly convince him not to arrest her? At a loss, she began blurting the first things that came to her mind, barely pausing for breath. “Somebodystolemybloodandnowcriminalsarecomingbacktolifeandtheydidn’taskmy permissionandIneedyourhelptostopthem!”

Mirage paused, although his hands remained firm. “But you’re a villain,” he said stupidly.

“Well, those villains didn’t ask this villain if they could take all of her blood and dump her body in a ditch. I don’t want to get blamed for this. It wasn’t my fault!” Her voice came perilously close to a whine, so she snapped her jaws shut. Her throat was starting to lump, too. She would not cry.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

How drunk was he? “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll give you all of the information I have about the men who did this to me. You take out the leaders. You get to rub it in the faces of your colleagues. In return, I go home, take a shower, don’t go to jail, and we never speak of this ever again. You arrest me, and Wolverine is probably going to beat you to solving the mystery, clean up the mean streets, and get all of the glory.”

Jenny prayed he wasn’t sober enough to come to the conclusion that the glory of arresting Ragdoll would probably overshadow the takedown of whatever criminal mastermind was behind the resurrections.

She splayed gracelessly back into the booth where Mirage shoved her. She scrambled back around, uncomfortably aware that she had no chance of defending herself. The super might be a drunk, but he still had the look of a man who pumped serious weights and she wasn’t exactly known for her a**-kicking skills.

He dropped down on the bench across from her, pinning her with a warning glare. Fat overlaid muscle these days, although she had seen pictures of him in his prime. Mirage had once been one of those big, good looking jocks that a person usually saw pummeling others on the football field. Now, male pattern baldness had claimed most of his blond hair, his eyes had yellowed with jaundace, probably due to liver failure, and his nose had been broken enough times that it was only a lumpy echo of what it one had been.

He needed a win in his life.

“So you tell me where to find these goons, I get the glory and you get to walk? Do I have that right?” he asked severely.

She nodded breathlessly.

His gnarled nose scrunched. “No deal.”

“People are going to die!” she gasped.

Leaning across the table, he jabbed his index finger toward her. The nail was bitten down just as far as hers was. She instinctively clenched her hands in her lap. “This is how this deal goes. You give me the information. You also come home with me and use your healing s**t on my little girl. Then I go out and save your a** from taking the heat from this mess.”

That was surprisingly selfless for an alcoholic.

“What’s wrong with your kid?” she grunted, slumping low in her seat.

“Leukemia. She’s at her mother’s and stepdad’s attached to a ventilator waiting to die. It’s here in Brooklyn. You save her, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

They were dealing, so she dealt. “You keep my name out of the headlines. You clean this up, then I’ll visit your daughter.”

“Then you’re coming along while I crack some heads. I’ve got to keep an eye on you.”

From across the table, she got another whiff of stale whiskey. Jenny breathed shallowly as she considered her options. Mirage would go out cracking heads. She didn’t even like watching those kinds of fights in movies. There would be blood, there would be broken bones...she got a little queasy just thinking about it. Not to mention, in the aftermath, she wouldn’t have the time to patch anybody up.

“I...uh…”

“Or we can make a trip over to my ex-wife’s, we pay Lacy a visit, you work your mojo real fast, and then you disappear into the woodwork while I take care of your problem. Those are the only two ways this is going,” he informed her bluntly.

As long as the job got done. Nodding, she agreed. “All right, let’s visit your daughter first, but let’s do it quickly.” She jerked her chin toward the television screen. “Angela Parker was just reported sighted at a Chanel store on a shopping spree. You know it won’t be long before she’s on a murder spree next.”

Grimacing, he motioned for her to follow him.

The staff and patrons alike who had watched their scuffle and argument all bent back to their own business as they scooted out of the booth. They had been wise enough to keep a safe distance, which decreased the likelihood of anybody overhearing, just in case violence broke out.

Stuffing her hands deep into her pockets, Jenny slouched after Mirage, who stepped outside to hail them a cab.

Mrs. Ex-Mirage must have married into some money, because the apartment they occupied was huge. Jenny didn’t ask for the details on their relationship, but he was allowed to enter unannounced and even had his own key. No matter how messy a divorce it might have been, they had clearly found some common ground with their ailing daughter.

“George, is that you?” a woman’s voice called wearily in the general direction of the kitchen.

Mirage stuffed Jenny behind him, hiding her with his bulk. She tried to peek around at the white and yellow furnishings, amazed at how clean and tidy everything was. Not a single book was crooked on the shelf next to the wall. The coffee table was clear of debris except for a neat stack of coasters.

“I just swung by to drop something off for Lacy, Julia,” he called. “I’ll be in and out in a few minutes.” Fastening a beefy hand around her wrist, he dragged her across the apartment before his ex could emerge and greet him. “Let me go in first. She has an at-home nurse I might have to get rid of.”

The at-home nurse appeared to be on break. They entered the room, which had been converted to suit the needs of dying girl. It was stuffed with hospital equipment amidst pink unicorns and fairy dolls. The girl on the bed was probably seven or eight, but practically skeletal, clearly within the last stages of her disease. A pink knitted cap covered her bald head and she clutched a stuffed pink unicorn. An IV stand contained saline, medication, and a blood infusion.

Perfect.

The room suddenly transformed. An enchanted forest rose up around them, with broad, leafy trees blooming with pink flowers the size of basketballs. Fairies flitted around the branches. A wind stirred Jenny’s lumpy hair, whispering through the branches.

On the bed, Lacy cracked her eye. “Daddy?”

“Right here.”

And he was, except his glamour had changed him, too. No longer fat and bald, but an echo of his glory days.

“Um...sorry to interrupt, but I kind of need to see what I’m doing. Which bush is the medical cart?” Jenny asked, spinning around and squinting, hoping to see through the images he created. She wanted to get this over with quickly.

“Oh. Sorry. There.”

A corner of the room emerged from the enchanted forest and became medical supplies. She picked through it, pocketing a few things that Lacy would no longer need once she got some of Jenny’s blood in her. Distracted, Mirage didn’t notice the minor thefts. She didn’t often have access to this kind of equipment, so she felt like it was only fair…

...Ooh! Endotrachial tubes!

Finally she found packaged, sterile syringes. This wasn’t going to be easy. With so little blood pumping through her system, her veins would be shrunken up tightly. Jenny hated drawing blood from herself to begin with, but this was going to be a nightmare.

“Um...chair?”

Mirage had hold of his daughter’s hand. He dropped another part of the glamour and pointed.

“Daddy, who is that?”

“Fairy princess, sweetheart. She’s here to make you better.”

Jenny cringed and look down at herself. Sure enough, she was wearing a pink sparkly tutu. Twisting, she could make out glimmering wings over her shoulder.

“Really? You want me to wear pink? Do you see the color of my hair?” she huffed, stumping over to the armchair and dropping into it. She flexed her hands a few times, hoping to increase the blood flow enough to find the vein.

“Just get on with it. The more time you waste, the sooner somebody is going to realize you’re to blame for things.”

It wasn’t a point she could argue. Sucking up her resolve, she angled the needle, gnawed her lower lip raw, and fished around for her vein. It took a few sticks, but she had done this enough times not to struggle too terribly hard. Finally, when she drew back on the needle, the capsule filled with red. She didn’t take too much, having already lost enough for one day, and removed the needle with a deep sigh of relief, already feeling a sweat break out on her body.

Holding the needle as if it contained the bubonic plague instead of a few cc’s of her own blood, she stomped over the mulch of the forest floor and over to the hanging infusion bag. She avoided looking at it directly, sticking the needle into it and pushing her blood inside.

“There. It’s done. Let’s go,” she gasped, chucking the syringe into the red container near the bed that emerged from Mirage’s glamour.

“That’s it?”

“Yep. She’ll feel better in no time. Now you have a city to save and I have a bath to take,” she pleaded.

Leaning over the bed, he kissed his daughter and murmured something that was probably a promise to return later. They made it out of the apartment without confronting the ex-wife and down to the street level.

“Okay, now it’s your turn. Who am I tracking down?” he asked as they hit the sidewalk again.

Taking in a breath, Jenny gushed everything she knew about the men responsible. He was going to have to make his way up the chain of command, but he was a super. That sort of thing was his area of expertise. When she had given him everything he could remember, she brought her fingers back up to her mouth to find some more nail that needed chewing.

“I can work with that,” he rumbled after she was finished. For a moment, it looked like he was about to thank her, and then shook his head. Spinning on his heel, he walked away.

Jenny had never felt so relieved. Her problem was going to disappear and she wasn’t going to jail. That was as close to a win as she was going to get for the day.

Now one problem remained. How was she supposed to get home from Brooklyn with no cash? That bath was farther away than she thought. Sighing, she resigned herself to a long walk.
__

“He was too ugly to be human,” Jenny gaped.
For once they were almost in complete agreement.
“He was too ugly to be anything,” the Plague Doctor replied firmly, catching Jenny’s arm before she let go of the ledge to cover her mouth at the slip. He was getting good at predicting her actions.
The whole situation would have been quite funny, if they weren’t both hanging by the tips of their fingers from the top of a very steep drop. As she chanced a look down, Jenny reaffirmed her opinion that New York looked far better from the ground. She just wasn’t a fan of birds-eye-view.
“You should’ve just pressed the big red button, dolly.”
“It’s Ragdoll, if you must call me by a nickname,” Jenny said politely.
“Oh?” The Plague Doctor wasn’t sure if she actually thought she was fooling anyone with that forced calm demeanour. It was alright to show that you were scared shitless when your hand hold near the very top of the Empire State Building was the only thing stopping you from going splat on the pavement a couple of hundred metres below. Nothing to be ashamed of, really.
“And also,” she continued nonchalantly, “I was going to press it, but didn’t you see he was holding Ploopy hostage?!”
“…Ploopy?” The Plague Doctor questioned incredulously. He thought for a moment. “You couldn’t possibly mean…” That plush toy?!
“How could anyone leave with a brute like him such a nice, soft, cuddly…” Her eyes went a little watery.
“That wasn’t even yours! And also, why did you name it?!” Forget what he thought before. He’d forgotten what it was like to deal with her. And what was with that ridiculous naming sense?! Inwardly though, he was shocked to find himself a little pleased at the fact that in the two years he’d spent looking for her, she hadn’t changed much at all. Her face was still bare without any hint of make-up, without a hint of pretentiousness, still so small and seemingly fragile and yet… at this moment if they were both to fall, she would eventually peel herself off the pavement like she had the last time they had met—he’d put a bullet through her chest to no avail. He snorted at the memory.
There was another thing that never changed: she still did things without thinking about the consequences.
“Not that I’m complaining, but did you have ANY plan at all when you decided to crash my execution party?”
“Well…” Jenny appeared to think for a moment. “None!”
He could believe that.
Five hours ago, if someone had told him his rescuer would come in the form of a freckly pipsqueak, he would’ve laughed in their face. Mainly because the crystalized holy water bracelets they’d attached to his wrists prevented him from sending a swarm of rats after their a**. Rescued by an overly-emotional carrot-top? He’d never live it down.
And yet, here they were.
Funny how life works.
Maybe if he was still alive later, he’d ask her exactly why her contractor had thought that it would be a good idea to send in her of all people with the rest of the rescue team. Perhaps it was for the shock factor? A diversion? Indeed, when she’d collapsed in the midst of all the gunfire, no one had thought she would stand again. No one would have thought that a young girl, probably just barely out of her teens if they were lucky—(otherwise that would mean a lot of paperwork to explain away the necessity to shoot her—she had been unarmed) who the guards had stepped over when she had fallen with three bloody wounds dotted across her chest, would get up again behind them minutes later to release the dangerous criminal from the electric chair.
As for the criminal himself? He’d casually stood before acquiring a gun from the one guard who had been left behind at the doorway to his bare little cell. Then, hoisting her over his shoulder like this had been the plan all along, he made for freedom. Her spastic squawks and politely-worded complaints at the man-handling were equally politely ignored until she twisted and whispered in his ear before pushing what looked like a remote into his hands. She said it was from her contractor. It was at this point that the Plague Doctor realised what was going on. It had been worth getting into Roger Powers’ good books after all.
He grinned, gripping her more securely around the waist to her dismay before continuing his swaying march down the hall.
“Do you—”
“Of course I know where I’m going.”
Cold white walls stretched on seemingly forever, but at the end of the corridors which were beginning to smell of raw metal and smoke, the Plague Doctor and Jenny emerged into late afternoon sunlight. The sun shone brightly above, and few clouds dotted what was an endless expanse of blue—the Plague Doctor had gained a new appreciation for nice scenery after being isolated for so long in white, white, white. He stood admiring even as sirens roared around the corner of the street they stood in. The leading car screeched to a jolting halt and a large, muscle-bound man stepped out with a strange red rabbit plush attached to his belt. The Plague Doctor and Jenny each had a double take for different reasons. Had things really changed so much since his incarceration a few months ago? The Plague Doctor wondered. Was this a new fashion trend? Was his gruesomely scarred face the result of an animal attack? Wasn’t he that guy from a few years ago…?
He shook his head free of those distracting thoughts as he dropped Jenny to her feet in front of him, placed something in her hand and raised her arm in a ninety degree angle to their bodies.
“Press it.”
“What does it do?”
“Just press it.”
“Why don’t you press it?” she asked innocently.
“Because I’m not the one with weird a** healing mumbo jumbo.”
“…Will it hurt?!”
“For you? Probably not?”
“Oh, that’s good then!” Jenny grinned and prepared to press down on the shiny red button on the equally obnoxious glittery black remote.
“You’ve got to point it at them, dolly.” Suddenly, the Plague Doctor began to cackle wildly, and as all good super-villains do, began to launch into an explanation of exactly how his most recent evil invention works. “Fools, you will all rue the day you—”
“Don’t press it girl,” the leading police officer commanded.
“—see, using my latest invention, I can—”
“You’ll be in less trouble if you surrender now—”
“—and then see, using pipsqueak’s powers, the whole healing process reverses—”
“Just step this way slowly away from the bad man.”
“—then poof! It’s like cancer, the cells destroy the body from the inside… is anyone listening to me?!” It was the mask. Definitely the mask. He just didn’t look intimidating enough without it on.
“I can’t do it,” Jenny sobbed.
“Yes you can.” He nudged her closer to the edge of the street and adjusted her aim.
“Can’t,” she grasped at him, brown eyes watery and huge and… super awesome mega villains don’t find things cute. They don’t.
Apparently, Jenny had been paying attention to his explanation. As were the other police officers who were now beginning to inch forwards, guns out and faces blanched white…
“Press. It. Or else.”
“Noooo.”
She sure picked a nice time to have moral misgivings. Suddenly, to the surprise of everyone present, the Plague Doctor grabbed for her hand, slamming her finger down on the button—and she let go, shocked—and his remote spiralled down—and down, and down…
…and kept going until it hit the water underneath the metal grill at their feet.
He stared. She didn’t seem to notice, continuing to flail against him.
Someone snorted. He grabbed her and ran.
Five hours later, the chase had ended at the pinnacle of New York.
“I hate heroes,” the Plague Doctor vaguely commented as the scarred policemen loomed over the two of them.
“Found you.”
There was no way out of this one. He wasn’t going back to be executed while people watched from behind a screen as if his life’s passing was a mere ten second theatre horror show.
He was the Plague Doctor.
He refused to believe that this was the end—and wait—he slowly turned his gaze on Jenny, eyeing her quietly. The possibility was small but…
“Hey,” he said.
Jenny’s arms were trembling now. They’d both been holding on for a good two minutes and now the wind was getting strong. The Plague Doctor was fit, but being on the run with a midget in tow for a few hours didn’t do wonders for their situation now. This had been a bad choice of hiding spot. They’d been desperate after all.
They were out of options, he realised with a dull pang of disappointment. So this was it huh… he glared at the crystallized holy water on his wrists which just would not come off. If only they hadn’t found his one weakness… but there was no point lingering on that now. He squeezed his eyes shut.
For the very first time, his brain offered him nothing. Everything was going a little fuzzy and blank. All that was left…
Jenny winced and gasped as the chilly wind froze her fingers and stiffened her muscles. This really hadn’t been the best hiding place. She probably had enough strength to pull herself back up, but what was waiting for her up there was…
“I should have pressed the button.”
“I knew you’d see things my way eventually.” A little too late though.
There was nothing else for it—a dirty leather shoe set itself next to his fingers, and the Plague Doctor looked up with recognition into the eyes of someone he had definitely wronged in the past—the policeman’s mutilated nose bore large teeth marks which belonged to Little John, one of his favourite little rabid rats. The policeman wasn’t calling out to his fellows—he wasn’t planning on arresting them.
This close, Jenny could see the policeman’s wicked, vindictive grin which, in her opinion, looked a little better on the man hanging next to her. As she fought a battle within herself, trying to decide if she should just try her luck with the government again, bracing herself to try and crawl back onto flat floor, she caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eyes.
She turned minutely and felt a jolt of horror as wind rushed by her. And for a second she thought that she had let go, and that she was falling with the two figures that had flown past her side which shocking violence—as the Plague Doctor kicked off the side of the building without a sound, the policeman’s ankle in his bone white clutches.
At the last moment, she reached out to snag something on the ugly man’s belt. Then he was gone.
Both men fell silently, mouths open identically in their silent terror, equal in death.
“I never liked policemen anyway,” Jenny whispered to no one, voice trembling while she hauled herself up painstakingly. Out of danger. She turned to leave through the rooftop stairs, but her legs suddenly gave out beneath her. There was no one to distract her now from the situation she was in, and suddenly she felt a burning hand clasp her heart. She squealed dramatically, collapsing on the floor. Oh, she couldn’t breathe. Panic attack. The thought of it happening now began to make her giggle hysterically, tears spilling from her eyes as she felt a dull pain deep inside, one quite different from the ache of her bodily wounds.
A little while later, Jenny walked onto the street in front of the Empire State building, all scratches and bruises from the past few hours fully healed and wearing a set of different clothes. She needed to make a trip to the coroner’s office, she thought determinedly. Her job wasn’t over yet.

0000

“…and I changed my mind, I like heroes. They’re stupid enough to save people for free. It was all part of my plan by the way. Also—I can’t believe you actually like that ugly plush, it looks like a cross between a kangaroo and a turtle—”
“Her name’s Ploopy!” Jenny chimed in happily as the strange, silver-haired man continued his post-second-life ramble.
“—so what I’m saying is, I’m a genius. You know how much research I did on you? Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers… Loooads. And then you just go and chuck my remote in the sewers. What’s with that?”

"You found her?"

"A small female trainer with orange hair," Alex confirms.

"That's the one. You found her? Where is she?"

"84C, row L."

Patterson pats him on the arm and scurries past. He'll get the story later of how Alex pulled this off. Right now, his time's a little scarce. He arrives at the proper section and vaults his way down the stairs. There --- yep. Right where Alex said she'd be.

It's only now that Patterson realizes he doesn't know her name.

"Hey." Solid greeting.

The girl doesn't realize it's for her at first, and Patterson gets some crusty looks from the thugs assembled around her.

"Hey, trainer." Do girl ones have a special name? Miss Trainer?? Trainer Lady???

She pops up in her seat and looks over. "Oh. Hi?"

"You know this punk?" one of her fighters says, and she nods.

"He fought Joel... um, last week? Right?"

Patterson's turn to nod, although he really wishes she hadn't said that. The fighters' faces all harden against him. Before they can start posturing or bitching, he says, "Can I talk to ******** off," a fighter answers in her place.

Patterson ignores that, eyes only for the girl. "I need to talk to you."

Despite the hostility around her, the girl rises to her feet. She pats the shoulder of the fighter nearest her and mollifies, "It'll be okay. He's pretty harmless," and her boys have a laugh at that. As she climbs out from the row, a fighter tells Patterson he'll bite his fingers off if he touches her.

"Nah," his neighbor chimes in. "Remember what Joel said? He's not gonna touch a girl any time soon."

Another round of laughs. Patterson glowers, but doesn't rise to the bait. He has more important fish to fry. He backs away as the girl steps up to him; she's wearing that dumb friendly smile again, too thin to be anything but politeness. Patterson doubts the fighters will let him out of their sight, so he only takes her up a couple steps.

"Are your hands doing well?"

"My hands?"

The girl nods... "We had to leave before I splinted the last -- oh, your trainer took care of it." She's already reaching out to touch it, what the hell, and Patterson instinctively hides them behind his back.

"They're ******** fine."

Her hands curl back to herself. "Well, that's good."

He huffs a sigh. "Tyrian's meeting with him today. You're close with him. Aren't you?"

Her eyes flick up to meet his, child-wide and star-bright. "With Joel?"

"No, with ******** Tyrian." For the first time in years, he feels like he's swearing too much. "Yeah, with your fighter. He likes you."

The girl pulls a face. "As a brother, maybe."

"Jesus, that's what I mean. I'm not saying you're sleeping with him." Her ears go red, and immediately Patterson backs off: "Sorry."

She shakes her head.

"I don't think you're sleeping with him," he insists. "Honest." She seems far too nice for that sleaze.

"So um," she tucks her hair behind her ear, "what did you need to see me about..?"

"Joel."

"..."

"And the meeting," his words limp along. "He and Tyrian are gonna come up with some shi-- with something to do to me, in place of the official fine."

She clearly isn't getting the hint. "I hope it's not too bad for you? You did break the rule."

"I know I broke the rule. But he likes you. Joel." He feels like he's running circles around a pillar, expecting new scenery every time he makes a round. "So you could talk to him."

"About the ******** finally. "Yes."

"I don't think..."

"What's your name?"

She perks up and fixes her hair again. "Jenny?"

"Right. Then, Jenny. You seem like a really ******** decent person. And he doesn't seem like one. You get me?"

"He's not actually so bad once you get to know him." She braves a quick smile; it wilts before Patterson's deadpan.

"Yeah, somehow I don't think me and him are becoming pals any time soon. Just, Jenny, please. Talk to him. See what he's got planned. And if it's something ******** awful, and you tell him it's awful, maybe he'll listen. Right?"

Her mouth wiggles. "Joel's pretty stubborn."

"And you're very pretty." (He thinks? Straight guys like the cute childish shy girls, don't they?) "I don't care how you convince him. I'll pay you if you want."

Her soft eyes keep filling up with more and more doubt. "It's really okay, you don't need to pay me to talk to Joel."

"No -- " Deep breath, calm down. "I'm paying you to save my a**." Maybe literally.

A beat passes. Another. Then Jenny leans in close and says, sotto voce, "He won't really hurt you over this, will he?"

"I don't think he'll gut me and pull out my organs, if that's what you mean."

Well, it wasn't what she meant, but Jenny can think of uses for said organs should they ever happen to be pulled out.

Anyway.

Patterson is talking again, saying, "Tyrian's good at coming up with ways to ******** with people. Between the two of them, I'm sure they can figure out something even nastier than live dissection."

"But Tyrian's on your side."

Please. "Tyrian's on nobody's side, not even his own some days." The girl's frazzled brows draw together, readying to ask a follow-up question, and Patterson waves his hand. "But that's not the ******** point. Point is, will you do this for me? How, what can I give or do to convince you?"

"I really don't need money..."

"What do you need?" When she drew a blank, he presses on, "What do you like?"

Jenny shrugs. "I like healing people."

"So heal me."

"You -- have your own trainers?"

"Uh." Think fast. "Yeah but." Think faster. "But, there's this thing in my back that goes tight sometimes, near the bottom. I twist the wrong way, and the muscle starts feeling like it's made out ******** jerky or something. It doesn't really hurt, just gets stiff as hell and it's hard to turn so fast."

Jenny's eyes practically glow. "I can fix that."

"So we got a deal?"

"Oh." She had already forgotten about his predicament. "Um, so I talk to Joel about being nice to you -- "

"Right. You fix my situation, and then you can fix my back." Wait, wasn't Patterson getting the better part in both of these situations? ******** it, he isn't going to complain. "Sound good?"

"Sounds excellent." <3

In the silence, Tyrian patted at his wrist. "Breathe, buddy."

Patterson hadn't forgotten to breathe, but maybe he was prioritizing other things. Either way, thus reminded, he sucked in tight air through his nose, nearly simultaneous to a long slow inhale by Joel.





Joel's air went to immediate use: "Ah, for ******** sake -- !"



Patterson stiffened, expecting him to stalk after her, yank her back by the shoulder (or worse, hair). Instead his arms did nothing except cross over his chest, his chin jutting off to the side in the embodiment of tough guy aloofness.

(He bet Vetters struck that same pose when he was Joel's age.)

"You can put him back together."





As Jenny turned slowly, Joel apparently felt the need to bulk up even more. He resorted to an actual power pose, fists on his hips, chest puffed, shoulders broad.



"He's so full of s**t," Patterson grumbled, and got another be-patient pat on the wrist.

"The girl's not exactly an angel."

"Hah?"

Tyrian nodded toward her -- her drawn eyes, her tight mouth, and the long flop of hair spilling over her shoulder, sheltering her like a child's favourite blanket. "You see a single tear?"

"Nah..."

"Mm-hm." He didn't sound at all bothered by this - quite the opposite. Their conversation overran something between Joel and Jenny; her mouth had quivered open and Joel had growled back, grasping at the barest shreds that remained of his cool guy image.

What a b***h.



Patterson felt eyes on him, and glanced down at a smiling Tyrian. "...what."

That stupid smile widened, but at least he didn't quip 'I told you so' or some other s**t. As repayment for that, Patterson surrendered back into the seat.

"See?" Tyrian gave a content sigh. "The squirrel's fine."



Goddamnit. He said the line anyway. "Yeah, ********' great. He's not gonna beat the s**t out of her. Good for them."



Tyrian could not give up that annoying grin, and his pleased little headshake didn't help either.

"/What/."

"They're done yet, kiddo."

Patterson's attention darted back to the pair. "******** does that mean..."

"They still haven't made up."

Before the kid could manage any more profanity-laden questions, Tyrian patted his leg and said, "Just watch."









And indeed, as smooth and inevitable as water overflowing, Jenny started to leak back toward Joel. Christ she was ******** tiny, and not doing anything to help it. Her little shoulders were still held close, though not so much fear now as --- eh, Patterson didn't know how to put it. That willingness to tuck yourself small into another person and become whatever shape brings you closer to them.





Joel didn't give in until the hug was irrefutable: when her head tumped against his chest, he frowned and brought a hand to her hair. What should have been sentimental (and seemed adorable to Tyrian) just creeped Patterson the ******** out.





Joel grouched something at her that Patterson didn't quite catch -- "Now, could you please stop acting like a wounded puppy and get on with it?"



-- but Patterson could not avoid seeing the girl's happy little shoulder wiggle. Creepy as s**t. Like some baby brat that had finally won over her papa and would be getting that pony after all.

Joel huffed, off to the side, "God. The bullshit I put with..." and Tyrian ******** chuckled to himself.



Patterson didn't think obscenities even covered his disappointment in the old fighter, so he went with the silent, repulsed stare.

That a*****e Tyrian laughed again. "Aw c'mon, kid. Are you seeing this? It's too precious. I feel like I'm watching a Christmas TV special... I haven't seen Joel this flustered since -- "





"Joel!" No catching his wrist this time. Patterson was on his feet, voice raised: "Hey, JOEL!"

Drastic times called for more than wrists --- Tyrian tried to snatch at his shirt and yank him down -- "The hell you think you're doing?"

"Yeah, up here, a*****e!"





Joel jerked around and swung a scowl up into the stands.



That scowl got a whole lot more lethal when Patterson shouted down, "You're a whipped little b***h, Joel."

Tyrian's hand sagged away from the shirt. "Kid, I know you got some kinda suicide wish, but this is excessive..." >__>

Not at all; Joel's face was absolutely worth it. "She keep your balls in a ******** bag? Jesus Christ." And then much quieter, to a standing Tyrian, "Where you ******** ******** you!"

Tyrian grinned and patted his shoulder. "That's the spirit. Have fun."

AND THEN PATTERSON GOT HIS a** KICKED.
THE END

"You work for your dad?"

Jenny, still throwing her skirt back into place, meeped an unintelligible answer. He supposed he should wait until her face stopped bleeding red shame. So he tucked his hands in his pockets and kept his eyes off Jenny until her breathing had slowed down to their feet's leisurely pace.

Then again, he prompted, "So you work for your dad?"

She trembled a little, but nodded.

"...huh." How did he say this politely... "You're tiny."

"Pardon?" She peeked at him through a curtain of hair. Not that it wasn't true, but...

"He's built like a mountain."

"Oh."

"..."

"Yes, um. My sister's tall?"

Patterson deeply regretted starting this talk. "Yeah?"

"She's a fighter."

He glanced over at that. "Does your dad own her too?"

"Well, not exactly."

Patterson gave her a very slow look. "I don't mean it rude, but your family's ******** up." Boy, that still sounded rude. "Not like I'm in a ********' spot to judge, but."

A spade's a spade, right? And a father in legal possession of his two adult daughters was a ******** spade if Patterson had ever heard of one.

Thankfully (?), Jenny dodged the potential offense and managed to root out a new topic. "Where is your family?"

Maybe not thankfully. "Uh. Dunno. Dead, I hope."

Immediately that was the wrong answer. Jenny clammed up, actually stopped walking a second, and her fingers knotted into themselves enough to turn her hands red (and then slowly white, as she strangled the blood out). Voice quiet but clenched tight, she said, "You shouldn't say things like that."

Patterson's pity went out the door: "I should. You don't know my family."

"They're your family."

"No." He didn't bother expanding on that. He wouldn't explain his lack of guilt to Jenny, so thoroughly owned and tamed. Maybe if his dad were also rich and mountainous and intelligent and ********, Patterson would tremble at the idea of wishing him dead --- but probably ******** him, but Jenny looked like she had just watched someone put a bullet in her puppy dog's head.

"Hey," Patterson said, not giving up his frown. "'member Mani? You know him? I talked about him before. With the darkies? You remember him?"

The barrage of questions needled her into a compliant shrugnod.

"I told him about you. Let's go meet him. He's an alright guy." And if any of Patterson's acquaintances knew how to plug up crying girls, he bet it was Mani.